


How It Should Have Happened

by Gypsylady



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Scene, Episode AU: s04e17-18 The End of Time, Gen, The tag gives away the punchline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:57:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gypsylady/pseuds/Gypsylady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not that the mental image of Captain Jack Harkness and Midshipman Alonzo Frame on a date isn't attractive. I just thought there was someone who was a better fit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Should Have Happened

Three distinct kinds of aliens crossed Jack's line of sight. The Judoon should have filled the most of his view but the furry humanoid was even bigger, and he thought it looked like Bigfoot was supposed to look. The most depressing part of sitting in this bar was that it triggered uncomfortable memories. He remembered sitting on the sofa in his daughter’s house, five year old Steven on his lap, watching a marathon of all six of the "Star Wars" movies. The child had been thrilled by the parts of the movie that had made Jack cringe the most. He had squealed with delight at the Muppet Jedi knight, and at the tiny but ferocious Ewoks. It was Steven who told him that the "fishul" (which Jack assumed meant "official") name of the bar was "The Scum and Villainy Bar & Grill." Some fan had apparently named it thus and the name had stuck, stuck so hard that a mere child could pronounce "villainy" in order to explain it to his indulgent grandfather (the one the child called his uncle.)

Some grandfather, Jack mused. This grandfather had killed him. No matter the justification, he had killed his own beloved grandson. This bar was an unpleasant reminder of better times that would never return. 

He found himself unconsciously looking around for Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill. What he saw instead was an assortment of creatures from across the galaxy, almost all of them drinking Earth-made beer. Even the most unlikely species loved Earth's hops and grains. A Golden Trounque Commander several stools down gripped a specially designed stein with its prehensile wing tip. A joined Karuu battle team shared a specially made goblet with two spouts. To his right he could see a chlorine breathing Verdayne sucking the same beverage through a filtered straw attached to her full enclosure suit. This made him snort softly. 

The most-exported Earth beer was a brand he hadn’t liked in the century it had first been made. Time had not blessed the beverage with much in the way of improvement. Granted, brewers now filtered the supposed "mountain water" to remove bacterial growth and alien spores that fell from the passing hover cruisers, but it was still little more than pale yellow fizzy water in comparison to the Welsh beers he’d grown accustomed to. 

A picture flitted through his mind of young man, cooling his overheated brow with a bottle of beer. That the warm beer preferred in the United Kingdom, reviled and laughed at by almost all North Americans throughout the centuries, was enough to cool the sweat of a hard day's work chasing the scum of the galaxy, was somehow fitting. They had been Torchwood. When Torchwood operatives sweat, it’s serious sweat. 

And the face he was picturing was seriously hot, like the body it came with. Jack smiled bitterly. As he held his dying lover, he had promised always to remember him. How ironic that the memory surfacing was of a day when they had had a clash of opinions over someone else’s love life.

He drained his glass when the memory started to turn melodramatically morbid.

The bartender handed him a folded piece of paper. "It’s from him," the bartender said, indicating someone Jack was surprised he hadn’t noticed before.

At first glance, the Doctor looked to him much like he always had. Then Jack looked more carefully. Beneath the always unmanageable hair, the long coat, and the pinstripe suit, the Doctor seemed unwell. His face was tight and his eyes shadowed, his shoulders stooped, and the pallor of his face made him appear almost translucent. The truth dawned on Jack. The Doctor was dying. He was regenerating into a different man; he would still be the Doctor but not the same Doctor. Just as the Doctor Jack had first grown to love had become this one, now this one would become another, and Jack didn’t think he was ready to handle it. He stared down at the paper and, after a moment, opened it. 

At the top of the paper were the words

_Her name is Christina_

He opened the paper the rest of the way.

_And she’s a Lady._

Jack looked up. The Doctor, smiling impishly, indicated by a movement of his eyes and brows that he should look to his left.

She was a beauty. Jack knew a player when he saw one and this woman was a magnificent example of the type. Her beauty was breathtaking, her unkempt hair adding sparkling personality to her fashionable and elegant appearance. He recognized a bit of himself in the way her eyes scanned the crowd, and the way her lips twisted into a private smile. 

When he looked up, the Doctor was gone.

Clearing his throat, he said, "Lady Christina, would you care to join me for a drink?"

Her expression turned to a look of disdain that the aristocracy saved for Americans and certain Celts. Jack, having a bit of each in his adopted background, was used to it.  


But then she turned and saw him full-on. Disdain turned to interest. "How did you know my name?" she asked playfully.

Jack debated asking how she came to know the Doctor but decided to hold off on that. "I’m kinda psychic," he said with a flirtatious grin.

Lady Christina said, "Oh, is **THAT** what they’re calling it these days?" But she smiled affably at him and he saw that he had her attention.

He rose. "Are you going my way?" he asked, offering her his arm.

"I think it more likely that you're going mine," she said, linking her arm into his bent elbow. "But we're both going that way," she added and sauntered out of the bar with him now, to his own surprise and pleased amusement, on her arm.

It wasn’t perfect, Jack thought, but something about her casual confidence and bouncy, self-satisfied gait made him cheerful. After a few steps, he loosened his hold on her arm and straightened a bit. While he regretted that he would never be able to tell the man he'd so loved about this upcoming adventure, he was looking forward to whatever came next.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this shortly after "The End of Time" aired. I loved the thought of what the Doctor did to help Jack start healing after he lost both his lover and his grandson during Torchwood's third season. BBC America ran "Planet of the Dead" again this evening and I was reminded how sorry I had been to see the last of Lady Christina. I'd wished there could be a way to see more of her. This would have been a good way.


End file.
